


The Runaround Sue Job

by bessemerprocess



Series: Thieves and Wizards [5]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Dinosaurs, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 07:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2842766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/bessemerprocess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Parker is missing," Sophie announces, before she even makes it all the way into the kitchen.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Runaround Sue Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChouetteAnanas41](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChouetteAnanas41/gifts).



> Thank you to neomalkin for the title. I only made him listen to 15 hours of oldies on this road trip :)

Hardison has installed himself and his laptop on the downstairs couch with a steady stream of orange soda and the last of the leftover pizza. Pepperoni and green peppers, the best kind. Nate had ordered it yesterday, back when they thought the latest con was going to take another week.

Not that that was ever how these things worked. Instead of a precisely timed and well practiced one week plan, they’d wrapped the whole thing up in twelve hours, after the thing with the cat and the sister-in-law and the guy who had recognized Eliot. Really, Hardison doesn’t know why they even bother with one week plans when they all know those are going to go wrong in the first five minutes.

Either way, they had pulled the whole thing off, no problems at all, just a little less sleep and a few more windows jumped out of than anyone really wanted. At least Hardison hadn’t been the one going out a twelve story window this time.

Even so, he wasn’t quite ready to leave the team yet. Neither was anyone else from the looks of it. Nate had wandered down to the bar, but Eliot was puttering around in the kitchen. Every once in a while he’d look up and glare at Hardison’s pizza, but really, two slices of cold pizza would not stop Alec from eating every single thing Eliot puts in front of him. 

Sophie and Parker had wandered off somewhere, which either means Sophie is trying to teach Parker girl things, or Parker is explaining to Sophie why explosives are girl things. It’s been an ongoing conversation, one which Hardison steers well clear of. (Explosives are clearly an everyone thing, but so is eyeliner, and Hardison is too smart to tell them that they are both wrong.)

Everything is good in the world, and so Hardison puts his head back, curls his arms around his laptop like a teddy bear, and goes to sleep

**

"Parker is missing," Sophie announces, before she even makes it all the way into the kitchen.

Hardison shoots awake, opening his laptop before he even opens his eyes, and logs on, hitting the keys a little too hard.

"What are you looking for?" Eliot asks, peering of Hardison’s shoulder, like the screen might hold answers that Hardison isn’t sharing with the rest of the class. 

"Parker."

“I knew that, I meant…” Eliot cuts himself off, exasperated. Eliot is good at waiting, Hardison’s seen him do it, he just doesn’t like doing it, especially not when he wants information now.

“We have a thing, and if she’s just gone to go do something, she’ll have done the thing and then I won’t need to panic. You know I don’t like panic, Eliot,” Hardison says, booting up the program he needs and typing in the 42 character long password. 

“I’ll pretend I understood even half of that,” Eliot replies, his voice getting low and growly. Yeah, Hardison knows Eliot is just as freaked as he is, that wherever Parker has gotten herself to, they’ll both be running after her together.

Nate wanders into the chaos, cup of coffee already in hand, though it’s probably less coffee and more booze.

“Guys?” he asks, as he walks past them into the kitchen.

"Parker is missing," Sophie repeats.

"There's no coffee in the pot," Nate replies, and if Hardison wasn’t so busy finding his girl right this second, well, probably he’d just be scowling. Eliot, however, is already at the growling phase, so it’s a good thing Sophie interrupts.

"Nate!"

"The Field Museum was broken into last night," Nate says, measuring out beans for the grinder, as calm and collected as the rest of them aren’t.

"Nate!" Sophie exclaims again, but Hardison leans back from his laptop, relieved. 

“It’s cool,” Hardison says, “She’ll be in Chicago. Plus, she did the thing.” He shows Eliot the screen, even though he knows he doesn’t know what he’d looking at. Doesn’t matter, Eliot trusts him when it comes to the technology. He does, however, wish Eliot would stop punching him in the shoulder when excited, because that bruise, it just never seems to fade. 

Sophie glares at Nate. “You could have said.” They have their own weird things, and Hardison is barely capable of keeping up with his own weird thing with Parker and Eliot. Other people’s weird things, well, he just smiles and nods, and figures Nate and Sophie will figure it out at some point.

“I didn’t think you’d miss the news that a T-Rex skeleton was stolen,” Nate says with a shrug. “You know how Parker is about Sue.”

“Wait, Parker stole a dinosaur?” Eliot asks, clearly trying to decide if he wants to be pissed that Parker stole a dinosaur, or pissed that Parker stole a dinosaur without him. And yeah, Hardison is a little mad that she didn’t wake him up for this. He likes Sue, too, damnit.

“What, no man, Parker did not steal a dinosaur. I mean, Parker could steal a dinosaur. Parker would be amazing at stealing dinosaurs,” Hardison starts before Eliot cuts him off. 

“Hardison.”

“Parker has a thing about Sue, the T-Rex skeleton at the Field Museum,” Hardison says, slower this time. “We did a thing for a friend of mine, and they bonded. Parker and Sue, the dinosaur, I mean.”

“Why didn’t I know this?” Eliot asks. And actually, Hardison does not have a good answer to that question. Eliot should know this story, and Hardison plans on telling all of it to him, just as soon as they find Parker.

“It was when we did that thing for Charlie? With the hacking and the ass kicking and the snails?”

Sophie shakes her head. “I hate those snails. Also, why do you know about this, Nate?”

Nate shrugs, and takes a sip of coffee, visibly working hard at ignoring them all. 

“So someone stole a T-Rex skeleton, and what, Parker went to find them?” Eliot asks. 

“Steal it back, more likely,” Nate says, from over the newspaper he’s somehow acquired to hide behind.

“With extreme prejudice And possibly explosives,” Hardison says, a look a wariness in his eyes. Parker really likes Sue after all, and Parker likes explosive almost as much as she likes jumping off tall things.

There is silence in the room for a moment, as each of them contemplates Parker and explosives.

“Let’s go steal ourselves a dinosaur,” Nate finally says.

“And a Parker,” Hardison adds.


End file.
